The Girl from the Well

The ten students are given four apartments, which, in turn, are divided by shoji screens that draw easily across. There are clean futons instead of beds, rolled up and ready for use.

The group enjoys a small dinner at a nearby izakaya with Mori-san, who continues to regale them with stories about Japanese history. Callie asks if he happens to know any ghost stories other than those of Okiku’s where the number nine heavily figures in, but the puzzled look on the man’s face gives her all the answer she needs.

Once they return to the apartment and the lights are extinguished, Callie finds herself lying awake, staring up at the ceiling. Her fears curl up inside her, magnified by the dark.

In the corner of the little apartment, I hang down from the ceiling and watch her prone form and know that she is aware of my presence. I, too, have followed her to this land of ancient secrets and quiet solace. After several hundred years, the taste of my old home, my old country, is sweet in my mouth.

“What do I do now?” Callie whispers into the growing darkness.

I do not reply.

For all I am, I, too, am not infallible.

? ? ?

The tour begins at the break of dawn “to beat the crowds” as Mori-san explains. Nonetheless, when the bus brings them and forty-six other tourists to Himeji Castle, a substantial crowd of people (four hundred and three) are gathered by its entrance, though Mori-san explains that this is a small number when compared to the weekends.

Even from a distance, the white fortress shines in the sun. Several parts of the castle are heavily under construction, and a large tent stretches out over several of the tower fortifications, much to the other teachers’ disappointment. Mori-san, however, remains optimistic.

The castle tour guide is a thin man named Tomeo. “These are the servants’ quarters,” he explains, as he leads them down a long section with numerous doors leading into seventeen smaller rooms. “Each servant’s rank in the castle was determined by the room they stayed in. The highest-ranked servant had the room closest to the exit, and each preceding room denotes a servant with a similarly decreasing rank. The inhabitants of Himeji Castle were very particular about their social status, their perceived stations in life, and it shows, down to even the domestic help.”

Callie turns her head briefly and catches sight of me drifting into one of the bedrooms farther down the hall. As the guide continues with his monologue, she slips quietly away and enters the room I disappeared into.

It is one of many small quarters in the castle. It is one befitting a humble, unimportant servant.

There is nothing now in the room to indicate its previous owner’s preferences or her idiosyncrasies. The bed is bare, wooden and devoid of design, and the barred windows look out into the great courtyard outside, where soldiers once trained under the lord’s watchful eye.

Callie looks out the window and does not see them, but I do.

I can still see the clashing of swords. I can still hear General Shigetoki barking orders as he drills the soldiers again and again, until they perform adequately enough to his satisfaction. I can still see the gleam of silver and the flashing of blades. I can still see the quiet young lord who stands before these men as they practice, watching them train long and hard so they can fulfill their purpose: to defend the castle and protect him from enemies foolish enough to assault Himeji.

I can still remember his dark brown eyes and

the way he

frowns a certain way when he is deep in thought. I can still remember

how he throws his head back and laughs when he is in high spirits, and I can still remember how he

sulks for days

when queer moods take him, his flaring temper. I remember how, this creature of dark still remembers, how I remember my heart

racing, this heart that has not beaten in over three centuries. I remember how my heart raced when he took my hand very gently in both his own and said, in his strange and gentle voice—

Okiku,

I will always be in your debt;

that strange and gentle voice, as he turned to his retainer and said—

Do with her